Odd that the people on rapture-ready discussion boards – who hate supposedly- fellow-Christian Catholicism with a passion – identify themselves almost completely with Israel.

I find it’s amazing in how with all the bombs going into Israel (sp?) only 4 people as of yesterday had been killed. It that doesn’t speak to God’s hand over his people and how he protects and will defend us. I don’t know what does. (from bakerhorsepower on a particularly disturbing typical thread on Rapture Ready)

That thread has a whole editorial about how God is 100% with Israel. Just like the writer above who talks about his/her god protecting and defending “us”, God can’t tell the difference between Israelis and fundies, either, apparently. So he’s protecting Israeli lives, in the mistaken belief they are really American Protestant fundamentalists.

(RR posters don’t see greater firepower and many more armaments and soldiers as having anything to do with the disproportion in numbers of dead people between Israelis and palestinians. It’s all down to god’s smiting choices.)

How ironic then that another post sees this very same God as protecting Palestinian babies by killing them.

Despite some tough competition, this is possibly the most distasteful post I have ever read, even by the abysmal standards of Rapture Ready.*

It’s headed by a picture of a young blonde woman with a bunch of flowers – looking winsomely off to the middle distance, maybe imagining the rapture – with a picture of a couple of innocent-faced young blonde kids in the post’s footer. Which makes the content all the more chilling:

A great thought!!
I have been upset about the innocent children in all of the fighting in Gaza….but this thought came to me….these little children that are dying would have been taught Islam and hate…this way they have a chance to go to heaven!! It’s terrible that they are dying and my heart is sad….but when I was talking to God this thought came to me….the ones that are dying are going to be able to go to heaven….instead of growing up and following Islam…so, something good is coming out of this…. (by someone who calls herself “cbressler1976 ^^Heavenbound^^”)

Two exclamation marks on “A great thought”. Maybe the punctuation mark is evolving to fill the sentience vacancy created by people like cbressler1976. These stray exclamation marks are trying to draw our attention to the criminal misuse of the word “thought” in the only way that they know how.

You’d think that this post must make the hairs on even Rapture Ready posters’ necks stand on end. Far from it. It brings in lots of lurve from her fellow raptards.

That is an excellnt point. It is always good to have an eternal perspective. (says wvborn56)

Really. I am not making these up. (I decide to take that comment as really being massively sarcastic, in the face of the evidence. Because I have to retain some will to live.)

Very good thought, on the other hand their parents think they are with “allah” and enjoying 72 virgins. But we know they rest with Jesus. Too bad their kids can’t tell them they are worshiping a fake god. The kids know more than the “teachers” of islam. (adds rapturecalldan)

Even I can’t fool myself that “very good thought” is sarcasm, given the rest of that comment.

To recap: these people see the deaths of real babies and children as good, because the kids won’t grow up to be Muslims.

No, even more stunning than that, if that were possible. They see the deaths of any non-fundy babies as good.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember, at first, feeling soooo sorry for all the little children who had died in the tsunami (sp) in 04, I think???? Then, it just hit me like a ton a of bricks–those little children, had they grown up, may never have come to know the Lord, and now they can be w/ Him. (from Mommytoa3rdgradeboy)

So this woman – who defines herself entirely in relation to her own child, if her sig means anything – feels nothing except delight in the deaths of other “3rdgradeboys” who don’t share her religion and nationality.

This tsunami tale is an opportunity for cute little cbressler1976 to also show her soft and caring feminine side:

It’s good to know that they are in a better place..

On a temporary basis, I am going to pretend that this dangerous insanity constitutes a coherent worldview and address some of their “points”

How many chosen people can god have? If the Bible can’t lie, then it must be the Jews. Hence, there is at least some logic in the bible-bashers thinking god wants Israel to win (although, given history of Jewish persecution, if that’s what comes from being god’s favourite, I’m bloody glad I’m a heathen)

But I am more than confident that there’s nothing in the Bible about raptards being the chosen people. So, why wouldn’t god think he’d also be doing the raptards’ kids a favour by smiting them?

They are saying that God is smiting Asian children and Palestinian children (some of whom are of course from Christian families) FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. So, why is their god being so mean to Jewish children by forcing them to live without letting them become fundies?
And, surely that means that god should be all for abortions, then? He must be doing foetuses a big favour.

Why is their god cruelly forcing the fundies’ children to live, given that heaven is so great and that they would be spared the danger of sin, if he just took them now?

Let me repeat, in true shock and awe. These are people who can rage endlessly and mightily over the foetus’ right to life and they consider the deaths of real human children to be a good thing.
*************************************
(*I’ve messed about with the links so as not to give RR any link hits. You can access the threads by reverse-messing with the urls. I don’t normally bother but this stuff is so emetic that I can’t bring myself to even leave a link in.)

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Flattering to the UK population as it might be to see the UK described as “gentle civilised Britain”, I suspect the evidence doesn’t exactly stack up. (You could ask the populations of Majorca or Falaraki or Ibiza if they recognise this as description of a British tourist, for a start.)

This was in the headline of a piece by Melanie Phillips in the Mail Even by the reliably rabid standards of Melanie Phillips, this must represent a new departure. The heading is:

I have to assume that Melanie Phillips doesn’t have a history GCSE, so she may never have heard of the many centuries of political violence that constitute British history. I also assume that she is 12 years old so never heard of the political violence of the 1980s. Kudos to the Mail for not being ageist and recruiting children as its columnists.

Hmm, wikipedia confuses me. It turns out she was born in 1951. She studied English at Oxford. (I guess it must have been difficult to get in without History O level…) I have to let her wikipedia give aflavour of her.

The BBC has said that Phillips “is regarded as one of the [U.K.] media’s leading right-wing voices”, although she defines herself as a progressive and a defender of liberal democracy. She began her career on the liberal left with the Guardian newspaper, and her gradual drift to the right of the political spectrum has been mirrored by her journalistic career: she now writes for the right-wing Daily Mail. She has used her Daily Mail columns and her blog to criticise, amongst other issues, progressive teaching methods, scientism, militant Islam, and what she sees as anti-semitism as a means of defending Israeli policy; to oppose equal partnership rights for homosexuals; and to support strict anti-drug policies. She has described President-elect Obama of the USA a “revolutionary Marxist.”

Also, in case you couldn’t have guessed-

Phillips argues that evolution is “merely a theory

Bear in mind that this is a woman who sees Obama as a “revolutionary Marxist” At least this gives some consistency to her characterisation of the UK as in thrall to fundamentalist Islam, backed by a fifth column of revolutionary lefties. A conspiracy into which she pulls the Liberal Democrat’s leader (ffs).

For silence is complicity, as once gentle, decent, civilised Britain changes before our horrified eyes into something very ugly indeed.

The Mail has talked up the demonstrations against Israel’s actions in Gaza to the point that it claimed that 100,000 people attended and that police were knocked unconscious.

Violent clashes occurred between police and around 20,000 protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in London (from the Daily Mail)

In notable numeric contrast, he BBC news site (NB the BBC is itself a minor Daily Mail hate target) says:

The Metropolitan Police says 20,000 people marched but the BBC estimates the figure could be as high as 50,000……
It is estimated there were several hundred police officers dealing with around 200 protesters outside the embassy…
BBC correspondent Robert Hall said given the number of people involved, the protest had been peaceful.
“But as darkness fell a small number of people, several hundred, have begun confronting police and missiles have been thrown,” he said.
“Although these are ugly and unwelcome scenes, they do not represent what has happened for most of the afternoon.”

Note that the BBC’s estimate of fighting protesters is one-hundredth of the Mail’s. Yes that’s one hundredth. How impressive is that for a margin of error. (Hmm, which estimate comes from an internationally respected organisation and which from a right-wing rag?)
The Daily Mail’s implication is that political violence is on a huge scale and is some alien (probably Islamic) import. It must not even have access to its own back catalogue – or else it mistrusts its own words as alarmist propaganda – which would pull out hundreds of examples of demonstrations in which an irate minority kicked off.

But no chance. If there’s ever an opportunity to make middle England even more bigoted and scared, you can always rely on the Mail to take it.

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There’s a weird female blogosphere subculture that I discovered by accident. It may not be news to other people but it was certainly news to me. This will came across as utterly unsisterly but I find these women even scarier than their male counterparts.

My kids had the following conversation at the store yesterday, very loudly, and within ear shot of several other customers:
John (4 years old): Barack Obama, and the devil, and the government are worser than anything else in the world.
Isaac (5 years old): Mom, John actually told me that he thinks Barack Obama is worse than the faggots.
Ah, precious moments!
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

In my determined naivety, I think these really stunning quotes are usually poes, because I don’t believe such people can really exist. This one seems so far off the human decency scale that it couldn’t possibly be real. Surely?

This isn’t in fact the blog of “Steven Anderson”. It’s the blog of his wife Zsuzsanna (Pause for ten minutes trying to find a way to pronounce that.)

After reading a few posts, your heart actually goes out to Steven Anderson himself. He must have committed some heinous sins for his god to have married him off to this woman. He “pastors what I consider to be the greatest church in the world, and also runs a fire alarm business to support our ever-growing family” He’s working 60 hours a week to support this “stay-at-home Mom” who also home schools their 5 children, the oldest of whom is 7 years old. You can hardly blame him for making sure he’s out of the house.

The blog is a dizzying mixture of straightforward momsy stuff about how to make a baby sling or taco soup with pronouncements that make me instantly think of a smaller-minded and less self-aware version of Mrs Lovejoy in the Simpsons.

….”Infections” is a nice way to say that these women have been rendered infertile by the STDs that run rampant in Africa, diseases that would almost certainly be passed on to the babies created through IVF. Sure, I feel bad that people live in a country where they were probably infected by their own parents, but do we need to continue that cycle of disease through sponsored IVF procedures? Besides, maybe instead of handing out condoms like candy, these people should be taught not to live like animals and sleep with everyone and everything that moves….

Repress that gag reflex. There’s plenty more.

The second reason given was “abortion”. Why any humanitarian organization would pay a woman to have IVF who has previously aborted a baby is beyond me. Obviously, she doesn’t love kids.
I won’t even get started on the “unsafe deliveries” part. It means that deliveries in their hospitals are unsafe because of ancient, dangerous, and dirty equipment. Of course women would fare much safer to just have the baby at home on their own, like millions of women have throughout history. Delivering a baby in Africa is no more dangerous in and of itself than delivering a baby in America. It’s the people who are attending the birth and interfering with it that are the danger.

I guess she’s unfamiliar with historical maternal mortality rates. 100 years ago, death in childbirth was a common hazard for women living in even the most advanced countries. I am also baffled that she has taken the idea that woman are paid to have IVF. The news article she refers to says that doctors are planning to offer “cheap” $200 IVF to women in Africa.

The bottom left of the blog has a list of things to do instead of watching the tv – almost all bible related, where they aren’t homemaking related. I can’t resist posting this list of the projects she’s working on, for its neat encapsulation of her world:

Projects I am currently working on

taking down Christmas decorations

writing on a dozen or more unfinished blog posts as I have time here and there

Knitting little squares of various patterns that I want to teach at our church’s next ladies’ activity

Sewing matching PJs for all the kids

Potty training Miriam

These are “projects”? Well, I reckon her projects of teaching her unfortunate kids to parrot her self-satisfied racism and homophobia don’t need any more working on, because she’s already managed to warp their minds to the point that she is actively boasting about it online.

I’ve characterised this as a subculture rather than the character-expression of one simple-minded female because she has loads of links to other similar SAH-moms (stay-at-home, that means) who devote their lives to breeding, homemaking, child-rearing and worshipping a man who is happy to support these hobbies. They also homeschool their kids. I promised myself that I wouldn’t rant too much about these people because their blogged lives speak for themselves. But, some of them really take my breath away:

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet,chaste, keepers at home, good obedient to their own husbands , that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2: 4-5
I have had a few jobs outside the home over the years. But I am glad that God’s will commands me to be a stay-at-home wife and mom.

We file our taxes in January so we get our tax refund this month and I will be able to finally start wearing skirts and dresses all the time. I still wear sweatpants around the house because I only have a few skirts. I don’t have any dresses as we have been out of church for several years.

I am baffled by the skirts thing and I’m someone who doesn’t even own a pair of trousers or jeans. I have loads of dresses and I’ve definitely been out of church for many years. I hadn’t heard that churches even had a “no women in trousers” dress code… Ah she explains it. For some reason, the god of abraham has decided that women should wear only skirts. And men trousers, I assume, which means that he hated the ancient Romans and Scots and greek soldiers. Why didn’t he take the trouble to kit us out properly at birth then?:

I believe that men should be the head of the household and the provider also. Women should be keepers at home. She should be a good wife and good mother to children and devote her time to her family. That is her job. She should dress in skirts and dresses and dress modestly. She should teach her daughters to do the same.

I suddenly remember that these women have daughters. Sisterly solidarity raises its head again. Those poor girls! Oh, and sons. Human solidarity, then. Those poor boys!

Here’s Rose from Missouri. She has ten kids and three grandchildren. How interesting do you think her day is?

I had my usual day today, got up and made coffee, took Cassie(stepson’s girlfriend) to work over in Kansas(that is a half hour drive there and a half hour back). Started dishes as soon as I got back, fixed hubby something to eat, took hubby to work, went to the store to get some drain cleaner( the drain in the basement backed up). I started fixing dinner about 4:00p.m.( fixed beef stew). Picked Cassie up from work. Did the dinner dishes( yes, you read that right). Steven is watching the idiot box, so I may go someplace and try to read. I haven’t read my Bible yet today. I have been reading 3 or 4 chapters from Genesis a day and the Proverb for the day. I started this on January 1st. …. Later, I have to go pick hubby up from work(he gets off at 11:30), then I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow!

This is pretty representative of the entries. How many dishes washed per day, how much she likes flannel sheets and so on. My heart half goes out to this woman, living a life so dull that bible-reading is the closest she gets to thought. She doesn’t even have one of those stickers that say “since the start of the Iraq war, x babies have been killed(*).” So I don’t want to seem too harsh. But the hideous sticker that says “have you been fooled by feminism” hardens my heart.

And I link to the blog of yet another of this strange sisterhood, called the On a Quest for Plain Living It has a sort of women-insulting parody of proverbs 32 and ends with:

Let us all strive NOT to be like this. We can have so much influence in our husband’s lives if we just allow the Holy Spirit to do a work in our life.

The term “passive-aggressive” suddenly takes on a real meaning for me. These women get to play house and rule over a small kingdom of offspring by flattering and manipulating the “hubby” into making it all possible for them. There’s no common project shared by equals.

These are women in the 21st century USA – with all the material and social benefits this brings them – who’ve all been to school and who all have equal rights. And they are somehow desperate to roleplay some parodic mix of an old testament prophet’s wife and a 1950s advert housewife.

It’s not that I think childcare and cooking and cleaning aren’t important or that I’d ever mock anyone for enjoying these things. It’s the bizarre view of men and women that they express through how they do those things that enrages me. And their interpretation of childcare can be actively anti-social. Teaching babies to mouth hate-speech doesn’t constitute “care” to me.

(* They mean US abortions rather than living Iraqi babies killed. The latter number doesn’t really seem to bother them.)